Linkage: The Narrows of Time

Chapter 11

Retrospect





Lucas pointed to therear of a white broadcast van parked a few hundred feet past thescience lab, on a side street to the left. The vehicle was parkedbehind two other news vans from competing stations, both facing theopposite way.

“Let’s go see ifChannel 9 caught anything on camera,” he said to Drew.

When they arrived, theyfound the van’s cargo door open, partially covering up the fadedblack stenciling on the side. Inside were two clean-cut youngtechnicians wearing jeans and T-shirts, and one older man with a badcomb-over and a belly hanging down to the front pockets of hisslacks. All three men were sitting close together in front of themobile studio, watching the center monitor.

Lucas poked his headinside the van. “Is that footage of the energy field that just toreup the mall?”

The older man turnedaround. “Yeah, it is. Who the hell are you?”

“Dr. Lucas Ramsay.I’m with the Astrophysics Department,” Lucas said, steppinginside the van.

The man looked him overfrom head to toe, then shook Lucas’ hand with a firm grip. “I’mDon Cain, Field Producer. Channel 9 News.”

Lucas nodded and gavehim a half-smile. “Can I take a closer look at the video? I may beable to explain what happened.”

“Sure, Doc, why not?Provided we get the exclusive.”

“It’s a deal.”

Cain used his lefthand to nudge one of the techs out of his chair, before motioning toLucas to sit down, which he did.

“Can you restart itat the beginning? I need to see the entire footage,” Lucas asked.

Cain restarted theplayback, showing an overhead feed shot from one of the helicopterscircling the mall. The first few minutes showed the energy domeworking its way west from Campbell Avenue, gobbling up street signs,parked cars, campus buildings, fencing, and most of the university’snewly renovated aquatic center. It was hard for him to watch as ahandful of students scrambled to get away from it—some made it,others didn’t.

The helicopter caughtup to the dome and then flew directly overtop it. When its cameratilted down, Lucas could see deep inside the phenomenon through afifty-foot opening in the intruder’s crown. The aperture was muchlike the eye of a hurricane. Debris was being carved out along thedome’s inside edge and, while suspended in midair, it was twistedand compacted into a long, winding rope of matter, before beingflushed through a swirling black vortex in the center.

Partially consumedbuildings collapsed along the south side of the mall, but only afterthe energy field moved past them. While the dome was in contact withthem, the damaged structures seemed to defy gravity and remain erect,leading Lucas to believe that the energy field’s perimeter wasacting like a stabilizing force, keeping the buildings upright untilafter it passed.

He continued to watchthe energy field rumble across the mall, consuming every inch ofgrass, trees, cement, and pavement, all of it stripped from the earthand wedged through the sphere’s powerful vortex.

He saw himself as aminiature on the ground, running up the right side of the monitor ashe and Drew moved west along the front of the Student union  . On theleft side of the screen, two injured females—one of thempregnant—were struggling in the grass, trying to get up before theenergy field reached them. Lucas had to look away when they didn’tmake it. He was obviously wrong earlier when he’d told Drew thatthe police would help those injured in the mass exodus.

The dome continued upthe video screen, slaughtering people unable to escape its maw. Lucasheld his breath as their bodies were ripped apart like string cheese,then mangled and distorted as they were sucked through the dome’sviolent eddy.

After the miniatureLucas and Drew disappeared off the screen, the energy dome stoppedmoving, turned an orange color, and then dissipated a few secondslater. The camera zoomed in for a dramatic close-up of the bloodyhuman remains left behind.

Lucas had seen enough.“Could you burn a copy of that footage onto a DVD for me? I wouldlike to analyze it.”

“Sorry, but I can’t.Not without my station manager’s okay. I’m sure he’s going towanna see it first.”

“We don’t have timefor that. Look, I’m not going to steal it. If you want, watermarkthe frames with your station’s logo and copyright. Just don’tobscure the important stuff.”

Cain finally agreed.Three minutes later, Cain handed a DVD to Lucas. “Can you tell mewhat this thing is?”

“I’m not sure yet,but once I’ve had a chance to analyze your footage, I should beable to. Give me your number and I’ll call you later with theresults.”

Cain gave Lucas hisbusiness card. Lucas shook his hand, then climbed out of the van.

“What did you guyssee?” Drew asked.

“I’ll show youlater. Let’s head back to the apartment so I can check this outbetter.”

Neither of them saidanything until after they crossed Speedway Boulevard on the northside of campus.

“Earlier I saw youwith the FBI. What did you tell them?” Lucas asked.

“I didn’t tell themanything except that my girlfriend was on the steps when the accidenthappened.”

Lucas thought Drew’suse of the term “girlfriend” was a little premature. Onebreakfast without a kiss goodbye did not constitute much of arelationship; certainly not one that would qualify her as hisgirlfriend. “Did you tell them you witnessed the theatre flash?”

“Yes, I had to. Thatwas the only way they would talk to me. I’m sorry, but I justcouldn’t stay away. I had to see if there was any news about Abby.”

“What else did yousay?”

“That was it. Ididn’t mention E-121 or the lab accident. Do you think we’reresponsible for all this? That we killed Abby and all those otherpeople?”

“I don’t know,maybe. None of this makes much sense.”

“Maybe we shouldleave town.”

“And go where? Wedon’t know if this f*cking thing will appear again, or where. If itstarts jumping around, then no place is safe. Besides, if we didcause this, then we have to stay and find a way to stop it. The onlyplace we can do that is here, in our lab.”

“No, you’re right.It’s our duty to stop it.”

Lucas heard their phoneringing inside when they finally made it to their apartment’s frontdoor. He struggled to find his keys, but eventually opened thedeadbolt lock and ran inside. But by the time he made it to thephone, the caller had hung up. “Was probably Mom,” he said.

“Knowing her, she sawthe news and has been calling every five minutes. She must be worriedsick.”

“Why don’t you giveher a quick call while I make backups?”

Lucas logged onto hiscomputer and copied the DVD video evidence to his hard drive. Oncethere, he uploaded the movie files over the Internet to his privatecloud storage space, which he rented for his computer’s weeklyoffsite backups. He kept backup copies of all their research materialthere as well.

Drew rolled over to thedesk after hanging up the phone. “Mom’s good; I told her not toworry. Is the backup almost done?”

“Just about,” Lucassaid, opening the desk drawer. He searched through the pile of junkin the drawer.

“Looking forsomething?”

“Where the hell’sthat sixty-four gigabyte thumb drive we just bought? I want to make acopy of everything so we have it all in one place.”

“It’s still in mybackpack. I’ll get it.”

Lucas heard footstepswalking across the floor of the apartment above them. His neighborthen flushed the toilet, sending a noisy stream of water down thesewer pipes in the wall.

Drew handed the flashdrive to Lucas. “If you need the space, delete my study folders. Idon’t need them anymore.”

“Why don’t you seewhat the news is saying?” Lucas suggested, inserting the drive intohis computer’s USB port. “The remote’s on the couch. Hit theMUTE button so I can work in peace.”

A few minutes later,Drew called out to Lucas from the couch. “You’d better come seethis.”

“What’s wrong?”Lucas answered with only partial interest. He was still in the middleof his USB drive’s download.

“They’re setting uproadblocks around campus.”

Lucas grabbed hislaptop, flew out of his chair, and raced over to the couch where heset his computer down in front of him on the coffee table. Thebroadcast showed four soldiers patrolling the street in front of thenorth entrance to the university, while two other soldiers erectedsawhorse-style barricades from one side of the street to the other.Three green Humvees were parked perpendicular to the street, justbehind the barricade.

“Hey, isn’t thatour entrance on Speedway?” Lucas asked.

Drew nodded.

Along the bottom of thescreen, the news ticker displayed the words: “BREAKING NEWS:Suspected Terrorist Attack in Tucson . . . National Guard Activated .. . Arizona Governor Declares State of Emergency . . .”

“Shit. Now we’llnever get back into the lab,” Lucas said.

“Better call Dr.Kleezebee.”

Lucas dashed to theirwall phone and picked up the receiver. He did not have Kleezebee’shotel information in Washington, so he dialed the professor’s cellphone, only to have his call redirected to the professor’s voicemailbox. He left a message. “Dr. Kleezebee, this is Lucas. Pleasecall me at the apartment when you get a chance. It’s urgent.”

Next, he tried callingBruno on both his cell phone and his home phone. There was no answeron either number. “Damn it, where is everybody?”

“You could tryTrevor. He’s home,” Drew said, looking up at the ceiling.

“Worth a shot,”Lucas said before grabbing a broom leaning against the wall, next tothe fridge. He walked to the center of the room and stood between thecouch and coffee table. Above him, the ceiling was dinged with dozensof shallow, nickel-sized indentations. He picked a new spot, thenraised the broom handle and rammed it into the ceiling three times,careful not to punch a hole in the drywall. “You know this would bea lot easier it he would just get a damn phone.”

He sat down on thecouch and checked his laptop to see if the video download hadfinished. The progress bar showed 100% complete. He removed the USBthumb drive and put it into his front pocket.

Less than thirtyseconds later, there was a knock at the door.

“Trevor?” Drewasked.

“Jesus, he must havesprinted down here.”

When Lucas opened thedoor, he found Dr. Kleezebee standing there, holding one of the E-121transport cases. “You’re back already, Professor?”

Kleezebee unlatched thecontainer’s lid and opened it. “Where the hell is it?”

Lucas needed a fewseconds to think, but his mind wasn’t cooperating. “Why don’tyou come in?”

Kleezebee scowled andbrushed past him. The professor took the middle seat on the sofawhile Lucas sat down across from him in a wooden rocking chair hisfather had made for them in the workshop back home in Phoenix.

Kleezebee put thematerial case on the coffee table. “With President Lathrop closingcampus, I went to your lab to retrieve the E-121 samples. Imagine mysurprise when I found this container empty.”

“Sir, there’ssomething I need to explain. But before I do, let me say that Drew,Trevor and Abby had nothing to do with it. It was my decision, and Itake full responsibility for what happened.”

“What the hell didyou do?”

“Friday night, afteryou left for DC, I decided to run the experiment again.”

“You did what?”

“Maybe it’s best ifI show you,” Lucas said, queuing up the reactor’s video feed onhis laptop. The recording showed the core’s flash of light in slowmotion, and the disappearance of the E-121 and its canister.

Kleezebee’s nostrilsflared and his face turned a deep shade of red. He just sat there,shaking his head with his jaw clenched, staring at the wall acrossfrom him.

Lucas thought his bosswas about to blow a gasket, so he quickly explained, hoping todiffuse the situation. “We felt we had to try again while we stillhad access to the lab what with the committee shutting us down andyou going to Washington. So we cranked up the juice and used fullpower.”

“And we correctedyour wave displacement calculations,” Drew said.

Kleezebee lowered hishead and began to rub his forehead with his right hand. Almost a fullminute later, he said, “You know, there was a damn good reason whyI changed your specs. I specifically told you to use only half power.You never should’ve done that without checking with me first.”

“Yes, sir, we know.We’re sorry. But there’s more we need to show you,” Lucas said,starting the video of the theatre’s flash event usingframe-by-frame mode. He stopped the playback at the point rightbefore he used the student’s video camera to capture close-upfootage of the body parts. He wanted to prepare the professor forwhat came next.

“How’d you getthis?” Kleezebee asked.

“Drew and I were onscene when that first blast of light hit the Student union  .”

“Why were you thereat that time of night?”

“We were meeting Abbyand her roommate at the theatre for the midnight movie. It was adouble date of sorts.”

Kleezebee sighed. “Werethey already there?”

“Yes. She was on thesteps with her roommate when the flash appeared. They’re bothdead,” Lucas said, lowering his head in shame. He waited for areprimand that never came.

Kleezebee did notrespond. He just stared at the floor.

“Somebody should callAbby’s parents,” Lucas said.

“She doesn’t haveany. They’re both dead,” Drew replied.

“So I take it, one ofyou brought the video camera to the scene?”

“No, sir. I found itthere, on a step. It belonged to one of the people waiting in line.They were using it when the light exploded the . . . place.”

“What happened next?”

“I recorded thescene. Here’s what I shot,” Lucas said, clicking the PLAYbutton on his laptop’s screen. “Notice the lack of rubble and thebloodless body fragments? Clearly, this was not an explosion. Despitewhat the police think, I doubt a terrorist cell could have causedthis type of destruction.”

Kleezebee gasped andthen turned away when the close-up shot of Jasmine’s severed torsoappeared on the screen. “Okay, enough. I get the picture.”

Lucas queued up theChannel 9 news video before asking Kleezebee, “Did you hear aboutthe energy field that leveled the mall this morning?”

Kleezebee nodded.

Lucas played the videofootage. “This was shot from one of Channel 9’s news helicopters.Notice the dome’s transparent crown, which lets us see what’shappening inside. It might also be a possible weakness, which couldbe exploited. Inside, you can see that matter is stripped from theEarth, and then it gets twisted and compacted before being suckedthrough the vortex.” He stopped the playback just before the grandfinale.

“Did you notice anychange in air pressure following the event?” Kleezebee asked.

“As a matter of fact,I did, both times. It was more pronounced after the second one. Itfelt like I was being pulled toward the energy field, not pushed.”

Kleezebee smirked, asif he’d expected that answer.

“There’s somethingelse you might find interesting,” Lucas said, replaying the lastfew seconds of the video. He froze the recording just after thecamera zoomed in and revealed the pyramid-shaped heap of tissue andbones. “The energy field leaves behind some form of bio-excretionwhen it dissipates.”

Lucas double-clickedhis laptop mouse to replay the video file containing the theatre’sflash event. He fast-forwarded to the very end, and then paused therecording on a scene showing the black powder sitting inside thecrater. “Drew, can we have the sample, please.”

Drew opened hisbackpack and handed Kleezebee the plastic container of black powder.

“We found this blackresidue inside the reactor core, after the E-121 vanished,” Lucassaid.

“Did you have itanalyzed?” Kleezebee asked.

“Yes, by Griffith’smass spectrometer—you know, that weird guy across the hall?” Drewreplied. “But the results were inconclusive. It didn’t detect anychemical or organic compounds. It’s as if it doesn’t even exist.”

Kleezebee held up thecontainer and shook it before his eyes; much like Drew did earlier inthe lab.

“We also found thesame substance inside the theatre’s crater, and it was all over themall today after the energy field disappeared,” Lucas said.

Kleezebee opened thecontainer and smelled the residue, before rubbing some of it betweenhis fingers. “It certainly appears the E-121 disappearance issomehow linked to the two incidents on campus. Wouldn’t you agree?”he asked Lucas.

“Yeah, it does. Haveyou ever seen a substance like this before, Professor?”

“Once, a long timeago, when I was not much older than you are now. We never were ableto identify it,” Kleezebee replied, closing the lid to thecontainer. “I’d like to run this by an old friend at the FBI.Substance identification has come a long way in the past fifty yearsand maybe he might be able to tell us what it is.”

“His name wouldn’thappen to be Mulder, would it?” Lucas asked, hoping to lessen thetension.

The look on Kleezebee’sface indicated he was not amused by the Hollywood reference.

“There’s one morething you should know,” Drew said. “Right before the E-121vanished in the reactor’s core, there was a massive power surge.”

“How massive?”

“Hard to say. It wasoff the chart.”

“Give me anestimate.”

“Based on the poweracceleration curve, and factoring in the composition and density ofthe E-121 and its receptacle, I’d say at least six times 1031terajoules.”

“That’s over atrillion times more energy than our sun releases in an hour. How isthat possible?”

“I don’t know. Butthat’s what the data indicates.”

“What was the sourceof the spike?”

Drew shrugged. “Wehave no idea.”

“Was it from sometype of cascading reaction?”

“We don’t thinkso,” Lucas answered. “We reviewed all the data, but found nothingto suggest that. I just don’t see how our experiment could havegenerated that level of energy.”

“You do realize thatI can’t cover this up. We’ll have to report this to the AdvisoryCommittee and to the authorities. Larson is going to want your headson a silver platter, and I don’t think I can protect you from thatfestering pustule of a man.”

“We understand, sir,”Lucas replied in a solemn voice.

“I need you to puttogether a copy of all the evidence and get it to me ASAP. I want toreview it with my colleagues on the committee and get everyone’sinput.”

Lucas retrieved thethumb drive from his pocket and handed it to Kleezebee. “It’s allon here, Professor, including the data logs.” He was hopeful thatthe committee’s senior professors would be able to assist. Two ofthem were Nobel Laureates who had won the Nobel Prize for Physics afew months earlier.

Just before he walkedout the door, Kleezebee turned and said, “Let’s meet tomorrow atnine a.m. in your lab. We can sit down and go through all the datatogether.”

“How are we supposedto get past the roadblocks? The military’s never going to let usthrough,” Lucas said.

“I’ll figuresomething out and let you know in the morning.”